9/11 Fourteen Years Later
For my grandparents' generation, it was Pearl Harbor.
For my mom's generation, it was the assassination of President Kennedy.
For my generation, the question is always this: Where were you on 9/11?
It was my freshman year of college and I was living in the dorms. My room mate was an early bird and was always up way before me.
She walked into our dorm room in her robe and a towel on her head, and said my name. I woke up and looked up at her standing in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock. She said, "Listen."
Every dorm room door was open with the news on. I could hear panic on the news and girls crying. My room mate turned on the news to the first tower burning. Within just a few moments of turning on the television, the second plane hit. I could hear screams from girls all over the floor. One of them may have been mine.
My room mate and I had to go to class then, but almost all classes were cancelled, including exams. I was back in my room in less than half an hour. We watched people jumping from the buildings. Everyone was crying, screams coming from down the hall.
Girls were standing in the halls screaming that their family members were in New York. No calls could get through. The city was completely shut down. All the airports were locked down around most of the world. No one could get in or out of New York City, and no one could find out if their families and friends were okay.
Tower two fell, and everyone on the floor was screaming.
News came in about the attack on the Pentagon, and later the crash in Pennsylvania, when the passengers, who had heard about the attacks in New York, took back control of the plane and purposely crashed it into a field to keep it from being used for another terrorist attack.
Tower one collapsed. My father was in Boston, and my mom's brother worked on Wall Street.
I heard from my mom later in the day. My uncle usually rode the train, but had received an offer for a ride from a coworker. They were running late and had not gotten into the city yet. They were able to get home safely.
My father called a day or two later telling me that he didn't know when we was going to be able to get home to Chicago. There was almost no means of travel other than by bus. Tickets were being purchased so rapidly that he had to wait several days before he could leave Boston. It took him two weeks after the attacks to get home.
In the following days, thousands of people left New York City. The only way out for many was to walk. They took their essentials and left, taking buses to journey to stay with family or friends while their homes were made safe. My father sat on the bus with a family who had walked out of the city and made it to Boston, where they were on a bus headed for Indiana.
The event that launched the US into World War 2 was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The event that started the "war on terror" was 9/11. The attack that day killed more people than were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Bush declared war on terrorism, one that lasted over 10 years after 9/11.
That day was one of the defining moments that united the American People, but also started a witch hunt dedicated to searching for members of the Islamic faith, as well as people who just looked Middle Eastern. Many hate crimes followed in the US as well as abroad. People were afraid of extremists, the kind of fear that ended in the internment camps that housed Japanese-Americans during WWII. Many innocent people were killed.
Osama Bin Laden was captured and killed, so now, the US has calmed down, but many people still hate and fear those of Middle Eastern descent. Hate crimes still happen, but much of the violence has ceased.
We are a changed nation.
For my mom's generation, it was the assassination of President Kennedy.
For my generation, the question is always this: Where were you on 9/11?
It was my freshman year of college and I was living in the dorms. My room mate was an early bird and was always up way before me.
She walked into our dorm room in her robe and a towel on her head, and said my name. I woke up and looked up at her standing in the doorway, her eyes wide with shock. She said, "Listen."
Every dorm room door was open with the news on. I could hear panic on the news and girls crying. My room mate turned on the news to the first tower burning. Within just a few moments of turning on the television, the second plane hit. I could hear screams from girls all over the floor. One of them may have been mine.
My room mate and I had to go to class then, but almost all classes were cancelled, including exams. I was back in my room in less than half an hour. We watched people jumping from the buildings. Everyone was crying, screams coming from down the hall.
Girls were standing in the halls screaming that their family members were in New York. No calls could get through. The city was completely shut down. All the airports were locked down around most of the world. No one could get in or out of New York City, and no one could find out if their families and friends were okay.
Tower two fell, and everyone on the floor was screaming.
News came in about the attack on the Pentagon, and later the crash in Pennsylvania, when the passengers, who had heard about the attacks in New York, took back control of the plane and purposely crashed it into a field to keep it from being used for another terrorist attack.
Tower one collapsed. My father was in Boston, and my mom's brother worked on Wall Street.
I heard from my mom later in the day. My uncle usually rode the train, but had received an offer for a ride from a coworker. They were running late and had not gotten into the city yet. They were able to get home safely.
My father called a day or two later telling me that he didn't know when we was going to be able to get home to Chicago. There was almost no means of travel other than by bus. Tickets were being purchased so rapidly that he had to wait several days before he could leave Boston. It took him two weeks after the attacks to get home.
In the following days, thousands of people left New York City. The only way out for many was to walk. They took their essentials and left, taking buses to journey to stay with family or friends while their homes were made safe. My father sat on the bus with a family who had walked out of the city and made it to Boston, where they were on a bus headed for Indiana.
The event that launched the US into World War 2 was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The event that started the "war on terror" was 9/11. The attack that day killed more people than were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. President Bush declared war on terrorism, one that lasted over 10 years after 9/11.
That day was one of the defining moments that united the American People, but also started a witch hunt dedicated to searching for members of the Islamic faith, as well as people who just looked Middle Eastern. Many hate crimes followed in the US as well as abroad. People were afraid of extremists, the kind of fear that ended in the internment camps that housed Japanese-Americans during WWII. Many innocent people were killed.
Osama Bin Laden was captured and killed, so now, the US has calmed down, but many people still hate and fear those of Middle Eastern descent. Hate crimes still happen, but much of the violence has ceased.
We are a changed nation.
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